Reason against history: presuppositions of Contractarian Natural Law in the Modern Period

• Autor(a) principal: de Castro, Alexander
• Data de Publicação: 2021
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Revista Brasileira de Estudos Políticos (Online)
• Texto Completo: https://pos.direito.ufmg.br/rbep/index.php/rbep/article/view/652

The political and legal philosophy of early modern period was dominated by contractarian natural law theory, which in its most relevant philosophical forms implied the abandonment of some dominant ideas in the medieval Aristotelianism. In this paradigm shift, not only the content of the ideas, but also the methods applied in the political thinking have played an important role. We analyze some questions concerning the nature of contractarian political thought in its relation to the philosophical and scientific culture that emerged with the Renaissance and try to explain the nature of some of its limitations, as well as the reasons of its decline in the early 19th Century, during the emergence of political and legal historicism. The method we chose is the comparison of the contractarian natural law theory to the currents of thought it confronted and was confronted by, in order to highlight some of its characteristics that were neglected by other commentators. In so doing, we intend to contribute to deepen the understanding of this current of philosophical-political-legal thought that informed the first declarations of human rights, the first constitutionalism and, later and indirectly, also private law through the doctrine of personality rights.